Is Comedy A Priority At Fox?

Yesterday,
Fox broke the news that freshman comedies Enlisted, Surviving Jack and Dads had been removed from the network’s production slate. As unfortunate as the news is, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise based on recent Nielsen data. However, while normally this story would simply go down as another case of low ratings on the side of audiences, there are two lesser known stories from this past season that suddenly turn these three simple cancellations into the pondering of a much grander question: is comedy a priority at Fox anymore?

When the 2013/2014 television season began, Fox had five live action comedy pilots ordered to series: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Enlisted, Surviving Jack, Dads and Us & Them? Don’t remember that last one? That’s because it never made it to air. At first thought to be a mid-season replacement, the Jason Ritter lead series ended up hitting the shredder during production of its ordered seven episodes. Don’t believe it existed? Here’s a trailer that was released a year ago by the network:

In addition, this past season, Fox preemptively cancelled upcoming animated satire series, Murder Police, after many of the ordered 13-episodes were already well into production. On its own, the news isn’t too shocking; a series with a title that sounds like it came out of the depths of Comedy Central hitting the network shredder ahead of schedule… that is until you realize the program came from Family Guy producer David A. Goodman. The show would have been an easy “from the producers of Family Guy” sell for Sunday nights, yet still, it was not given a chance to air.

Considering only one comedy pilot, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, was even given an actual chance to succeed this past season, one has to wonder if comedy is in any way a priority for Fox at this point. Considering the network just successfully re-launched 24 and ordered five dramas to series (Gotham, Empire, Red Band Society, Hieroglyph and Backstorm) while adding episodes to the already ordered second season of Sleepy Hollow, is there room at Fox for new comedy at this point? And if there is, why can’t they make their new sitcoms work?

Thus far, the network has committed to three comedies for next season, Last Man on Earth (which has the benefit of having Hollywood’s hottest director duo [and Brooklyn Nine-Nine pilot directors] Phil Lord and Chris Miller behind it), Mulaney and Weird Loners. That’s all well and good until you remember Fox has a third less programming hours than its three main competitors during the week. Of the twelve existing hours, over half of them are already spoken for, for the fall between new and renewed dramas and the network’s single existing night of comedy programming. Where on the schedule is there room for these new sitcoms?

This is the problem that faced Enlisted and Surviving Jack. By stacking its drama programming on top of itself, Fox gave most of its new comedies little chance to have a real lead-in. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was lightning in a bottle. It was a show that had the right cast and the right time, Enlisted and Surviving Jack did too. The difference? It’s a lot easier to get eyeballs for your series on Tuesday at 8:30pm than it is to get them on Friday at 9:30pm.

If comedy is a priority at Fox, audiences aren’t being given any reason to believe it. Drama’s very clearly where Fox intends to focus its efforts, at least for the foreseeable future. Even in animation, all Fox cares about right now is renewing shows with established success. Where the network once led the sitcom game with The Simpsons, Futurama and Malcolm in the Middle, it seems as long as the 24s and Sleepy Hollows off the world continue succeeding, Fox would much rather be known as a network for drama than a network for laughs.